I often receive thoughtful gifts that reflect my connection to Japan—perhaps a pack of samurai playing cards or a set of geisha postcards. While few could know that the item atop my current wishlist is a monograph on small firms in the Japanese economy during the postwar era, I still appreciate these gestures. They encourage me to momentarily set aside more obscure pursuits and re-engage with Japan’s classic cultural exports.
Among these, a haiku wall calendar entered my hands late last year. It's a product from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in Victoria, Canada, each month featuring a haiku paired with an ukiyo-e (浮世絵) print. I hung it in the kitchen, and throughout the year, I've been glancing at a new haiku each month as I potter about. Most so far had been from the Edo Period (1603–1868), with poets like Buson and Issa offering verses on nature, the seasons, and the secret romances of feudal society.
In his One Hundred Famous Haiku anthology, author Daniel C. Buchanan suggests that haiku are meant to be revisited, as each reading can reveal a new interpretation. The calendar becomes a fitting format, with a month to absorb each poem rather than flipping quickly through a larger collection. It has been a welcome presence in my home, though, until this month, it remained just a passing fancy.
September has arrived, and after a mild English summer interrupted only by brief spells of heat, the air has cooled, and fallen leaves have already scattered across my local park. London's streets hum with back-to-school activity, and while summer hangs on, its warmth threatening one final encore, the equinox draws near, ready to mark the shift. I've always felt attuned to autumn—it suits my temperament, especially after long summers, which leave me with a subtle but constant unease for reasons I've not entirely identified. Autumn is when I feel most creative and productive.
It is also my preferred season in Japan for much the same reasons. The cycles of these two island nations roughly mirror one another. However, September in Tokyo is becoming increasingly warm, with data from the Japan Meteorological Agency showing a noticeable shift towards hotter and more humid conditions. Tokyo reached a high of 34 degrees Celsius today. Still, hot drinks will soon return to vending machines, konbinis will roll out the oden, and maple leaf-themed packaging will fill the aisles of the sūpā.
This month, I turned the page of my wall calendar to reveal a night scene along the Sumida River in Tokyo. The full moon hovers in the sky, its reflection resting on the river's still waters. In the foreground, a boat holds silhouetted figures while one person stands on a small dock nearby. Willow branches delicately frame the left side of the image. The palette is dominated by shades of blue, shifting from deep indigo at the top to softer tones near the horizon, capturing the tranquillity of a moonlit Tokyo night.
Beside the image, a haiku:
街中を 小川ながるる 柳かな
Machi naka o ogawa nagaruru yanagi kana
Through the town
a little stream is flowing—
willow branches hanging down
The image, slightly more urban than the other scenes in the calendar, caught my attention first. The work, Sumida Banryō (隅田晩涼), translated as Evening Cool on Sumida River, is by Kobayashi Eijirō (小林栄次郎), an artist active during the Meiji Era (1869–1912). Eijirō's art often juxtaposed traditional aesthetics with modern themes. He created several series, including depictions of Tokyo's changing cityscape and railway scenes, reflecting the industrial progress of the time. Sumida Banryō exemplifies the shin-hanga (新版画) style, blending traditional Japanese woodblock techniques with Western influences like perspective and shadow.
Comparing the haiku to the image, while the Sumida River is by no means a stream, it's an inspired choice by the calendar's curator. It features hanging willow branches and flowing water, and the artist's life also intersects with that of the haiku's writer, Shiki (子規), who lived between 1867 and 1902.
To understand where Shiki fits in, I had to learn the history of haiku. For brevity, here's a condensed timeline: Haiku evolved from waka (和歌), classical Japanese poetry, between the Nara and Heian periods (710–1185), known for its refined and formal expression. By the Muromachi Period (1336–1573), renga (連歌), or linked verse, had emerged, with poets alternating between lines of 5-7-5 and 7-7 mora (音, sound units similar to syllables) in collaborative compositions. By the Edo period, haikai renga (俳諧連歌), a more playful variant, grew in popularity, and the opening 5-7-5 verse, or hokku (発句), became a standalone form, later used by Buson and Issa, those poets prevalent on my wall calendar.
Then, Masaoka Shiki transformed hokku during the Meiji Era, refining it into the standalone form we now recognise as haiku. Considering haiku's timeless image, I was surprised to learn that this occurred so recently. Shiki led the Haiku Reform Movement, aiming to separate haiku from its traditional ties to renga and re-establish it as an independent, contemporary literary form. With something akin to modernist sensibilities, he advocated for simplicity, directness, and realism, coining the term haiku (俳句) to distinguish it clearly from haikai and hokku.
One of Shiki's sharpest critiques targeted the overly formal tsukinami (月見), or moon-viewing haiku, which he dismissed as stale and repetitive. He believed poets should move past outdated conventions. Shiki's reforms, which reshaped haiku and influenced generations of poets, were articulated in his critical and literary work Dassai Shooku Haiwa (山頭火の俳句). Despite his short life, this text is regarded as vital to modern Japanese poetry.
Central to Shiki's reform was the concept of shasei (写生), or sketching from life, which urged poets to capture everyday scenes with precision. I unearthed a number of Shiki's haikus about the city. Here are three:
東京や菖蒲葺いたる家古し
Tōkyō ya ayame fuitaru ie furushi
Tokyo—
an old house thatched with iris leaves,
worn with age
日の旗や銀座は秋の山かつら
Hi no hata ya Ginza wa aki no yama katsura
Flags in the sun—
Ginza feels like autumn
mountain katsura
東京と江戸も變りて君か春
Tōkyō to Edo mo kawarite kimi ka haru
Tokyo and Edo—
both have changed, yet your spring
remains the same
These haikus offer astute observations of Meiji Tokyo, the kind of everyday reflections Shiki championed. The old house, thatched with iris leaves and worn by time, still feels a familiar sight, as does the scene of flags fluttering in the autumn sun in Ginza, with venerable katsura trees lining the avenues. His contrast between Tokyo and Edo emphasises the shifting times, but the essence of spring remains unchanged, paying homage to the classical themes of haiku. I wonder what Shiki would make of the present day, where even the essence of the seasons feels unstable.
I hit a momentary plateau as I continued editing my first book this past week. Last week, I spoke about the benefits of automaticity, but eventually, editing for long stretches led to mental stagnation as I persevered in weaving design elements with historical context. Although the book will ultimately be nonfiction, I noticed myself veering into an unintentionally factual tone.
I experimented with composing haiku during my breaks. Here is one:
看板が光る 窓なき壁は 秘密抱く。
Kanban ga hikaru mado naki kabe wa himitsu idaku.
Kanban softly blinks—
within these windowless walls
secrets tightly held
Poets have taken a flexible approach to the 5-7-5 mora format over the centuries, recognising that strict adherence is only sometimes necessary to capture the essence of haiku. Haiku grand master Bashō (芭蕉), for example, often adjusted the syllable count to preserve the natural flow of his imagery.
Perhaps the most famous non-Japanese participant in the form, Jack Kerouac, experimented with both classical and freestyle approaches, suggesting that since English and Japanese differ structurally, Western haiku should "simply say a lot in three short lines ... as long as it remains simple, free of all poetic trickery, and creates a small picture". I'm a fan of 5-7-5’s restrictions, but knowing that these canonised greats embraced occasional deviations from the form helped me avoid getting trapped in a haiku-writing vortex, without spending too much time on diversion.
During my foray into haiku, I happened upon the practice of haiga (俳画), where poets create minimalistic paintings to accompany their haiku, using brushstrokes to convey its atmosphere. I turned to photographs and short videos from my collection—digital brushstrokes, if you will, pairing my haiku with a clip of an alluring snack bar facade I encountered during a night walk. The haiku emerged as as a way to explain the subject of the image. While I might write a caption explaining that snack bars typically lack windows in order to provide a discrete space and protect customers’ privacy, perhaps the less directly worded haiku imparts the same understanding, in a slower, gentler fashion albeit.
Composing haiku equates to a form of mindfulness practice. It is difficult to capture the essence of a moment in a state of distraction. Bashō encouraged seeing with "new eyes", enabling the poet to perceive the world afresh and directly. Indeed, I found this interruption in routine gave my mind room to rejuvinate.
I grew curious about whether this type of creative micro-break holds any proven merit. Seeking the science, I found a study in the journal Cognition that demonstrates how even brief diversions from a task can significantly improve one's ability to focus for extended periods. In the study, participants engaged in a repetitive task for 50 minutes. The results showed that those who had brief breaks to respond to additional stimuli maintained their performance, unlike those who did not, who experienced a decline in focus. It suggests that short, structured interruptions around the length of, say, a haiku can boost mental agility.
In the midst of book editing, composing a few self-contained Tokyo haiku added a touch of whimsy that complemented the work. The concise format required just enough focus to shift my attention without causing fatigue. Completing a piece of writing in such a short time brought a sense of accomplishment and, with it, a shot of motivation to confront larger objectives.
When I returned to the book's paragraphs, I felt ready to adjust my nonfiction with the impressionistic touches it needed. And all I needed to unlock an appreciation of haiku was a connection back to the metropolis.
Until we meet by the Sumida River,
AJ